


Of Joy Departed

by soundingsea



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: F/M, Road Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-25
Updated: 2004-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-07 12:38:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soundingsea/pseuds/soundingsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps their travels would similarly write upon this shell, this god. If molded in the ways of this world, she might become more than an echo of what was lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Joy Departed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nwhepcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/gifts).



> Written for the Writercon Auction. Spoilers: through "The Girl In Question". Timeline: branches from canon during "Origin". Thanks to magarettt for weeks of hand-holding beyond any expectations of a beta, to bogwitch for the Brit Check, to melange for demanding clarity. Title from Edgar Allen Poe.

When the Orlon Window broke, saturating them all in unwelcome memories, Illyria stalked out.

Wesley gave Angel a long look. Conflict, pain, loss, frustration, a profound desire to understand -- all gave way to a deep and abiding anger. Despite betrayals new and old, this lie, now revealed, could not be borne.

Grasping in vain at his now-fleeting trust in Angel, Wesley felt emotion overwhelming him. That easy confidence of recent days was beyond his reach. In stripping away Wesley's memories and experiences, Angel had taken his ability to make choices informed by the bitter mistakes of the past.

No more.

Wesley steeled his heart and closed his ears to Angel's words, entreaties directed at Connor with no heed for his shattered friend. Face flushed, pulse racing, Wesley stepped outside the magician's lair into the temperate spring night. Not that spring and summer differed significantly here, he reflected, in this land outside time, this world where gods walked.

Strangely, this god hadn't walked far, as if she waited for him. In her eyes, he saw a silent question.

He addressed Illyria wearily. "Where would you like to go?"

"I wish to leave this place. You are my guide; you will accompany me."

Immobile, inchoate, she fixed him with the full weight of her icy gaze. In the space between one moment and the next, she remained the same and all else changed.

They stood on the roof at Wolfram &amp; Hart, site of their many and unvaried late nights.

Were they repeating this conversation, or had it merely changed venues? Had they been moved _in situ_ or had he somehow forgotten the remainder of the incident at the sorcerer's abode? Was he reconstructing and integrating memory, or losing time?

Wesley was uncertain, his head swimming. The encounter with Angel seemed infinitely far away, a pinpoint at the end of a telescoping tunnel. Wesley clung to his anger, fearful of the roiling hurt, the burgeoning memories that lay beneath.

Illyria turned slowly, deliberately, until she faced the rising sun. She looked solemnly at the streaks of orange and red before seeming to decide. "We will go there." She indicated the eastern horizon with a curt nod.

Wesley looked at her and laughed, suddenly, and then stopped when he heard himself. Was this what remained of him? This broken, querulous sound, hesitant and defeated?

Was this _but a dream within a dream_?

"Very well, Majesty. East it shall be." Choice was deceptive and fleeting. He would throw in his lot with her ancient will and see where it led.

****

Wesley felt the texture, the weight of her leather-clad arms around his body. They weren't much like Fred's, not hardly; she was articulated, insectoid, alien. Just as well that he couldn't discern more than the cadences of her speech over the roar of the motorcycle's engine. That was exactly how he wanted matters to remain.

The road unfolded before them, a blank canvas as was she. Wesley imagined the traces of their passage in the dust of the road, writing thereupon a new history, forgetful of what was past. Perhaps their travels would similarly write upon this shell, this god. If molded in the ways of this world, she might become more than an echo of what was lost.

Wesley himself, rather than blank, was too full, like an old manuscript glossed over repeatedly with annotations and contradictions. Warring scholars had embossed the story of those lost years on his flesh, their illustrations writ in silvery scars, in blood and tears.

Lost in a reverie, he didn't notice dusk hitting the desert. From one moment to the next, the transition from afternoon to evening was abrupt. Wesley had had enough of sea-changes for now; that was the purpose of going along with the god-king's whims, after all. His erstwhile certainty lost, he had thrown himself headlong into her inscrutable quest.

Let the tides rush as they may; only her volition existed now. He was untouchable.

****

He chose a motel by the simple expedient of proximity to the highway. Illyria, of course, took issue when he pulled the bike up and cut the engine.

"I do not wish to rest in this place. It is unworthy." Illyria slid off the bike and stood, arms crossed, her back to the motel, her face unreadable.

"Unfortunately, Highness, Podunk doesn't offer accommodations befitting your station." Wesley detached the bags from the sides of the bike and headed for the door.

Despite her protests, Illyria followed him inside, continuing her tirade. "Do not mock me, underling. You exist at my sufferance, to serve and guide me."

"And I've guided you to this fabulous one-star motel. Enjoy." Wesley approached the desk and checked in.

Illyria peered with apparent curiosity at the faded landscapes decorating the walls, as if cataloguing and comparing them to the road they'd travelled. She apparently roused no suspicion in the elderly woman at the front desk, who likely just shook her head at California types.

Once in their room, Wesley rummaged in the saddlebags and retrieved just what he needed. While Illyria stared, he busied himself with opening the bottle. Amber shone through glass, imprisoned. Time to free it; he laughed at the bitter irony.

As he methodically drank himself into a place beyond memory, Illyria grew restless.

"Winifred Burkle would not have allowed you to drink alone."

"Fred's gone, and so isn't drinking with me. We did that, once, but she didn't see me then, when we would have had time."

"Nevertheless."

"You'd like some, perhaps?"

Wesley knew she would not take the proffered drink, and was unsurprised when she sniffed the outstretched bottle and said, "Poison."

Wait; she could yet surprise him. She took the bottle, tilting it, throwing back her head. He shifted his eyes from her face, concentrated on her long neck, and for a moment she was Fred, dark hair flung back as she gulped.

But when she dropped her chin and regarded him steadily she was blue and other.

"Your maudlin sentimentality is unacceptable, as is your solitary self-pity." Illyria said with scorn. "The poison does not change that." Dropping the bottle, turning her back, she stalked over to the window, regarding the wind-swept gravel.

Wesley retrieved the scotch, only a bit of which had been absorbed by the carpet, and finished it with long, practiced swallows. Hurling it at the back of her head was an impulse soon regretted, and any satisfaction was diminished by her utter lack of reaction.

****

Waking came far sooner than it ought. Wesley's world was still fluid, mobile. His concentration shattered and scattered like a pond back home, in their country estates, when a flock of geese would all depart as one, heeding some imperceptible signal. Wesley savoured the memories of those solitary boyhood moments; dwelling upon them, he need not examine memories more recent.

The curtains didn't close completely in this low-rent room, and tendrils of light reached in to illuminate the form next to Wesley on the room's only bed. Wesley propped himself up on an elbow, leaning over to see if the haughty mein was softened by sleep. Illyria lay there, unblinking crystalline eyes fixed on the water-spots on the ceiling. When he moved, he caught her attention.

"Do not presume to gaze upon me with such impudence, creature."

"Did you sleep well, Highness?"

"I tried to lose myself in dreams as you did, but I find that I have had enough of sleep in my waiting years. I would not have the world change around me yet again. I have just only become accustomed to this time."

Wesley felt a momentary pang of sympathy but blinked it away, saying, "It's late. Let's move."

****

On the second afternoon they rode, a sudden shower came up, filling the air with mist, haze, hard-pounding droplets. A deluge beat down upon them; the rain was as needles, nails. Wesley was grateful for the force of habit that had dressed him in leathers, but keenly felt the absence of his helmet. He was relieved when the storm dissipated as quickly as it formed. The sun shone golden through the drifting clouds, suffusing the landscape in muted light.

Again they didn't speak on the highway; the motor and road noise were too loud. They did, however, touch. Her firm clasp around him became familiar, less jarring. He pushed that feeling away. He wanted to keep her at arms' length; when did she crawl up next to his heart, resting a blue-tinged cheek against his back, shaking a little?

Doubtless the goddess feared nothing. Wesley thought perhaps that the remnants of a woman within feared the unknown or the known left behind. And what had she known? Could she have told him that Fred's memory had been altered? _Would_ she have told him?

Wesley banished that line of inquiry from consideration; it would gain him nothing, at this juncture. What was important, now, was that his bike had switched to the reserve tank. Time to fill up.

He hesitated to bring Illyria into the company of man, but necessity forced them to pause at a truck stop halfway from here to nowhere. And of course as soon as the bike slowed enough she was off.

Illyria disappeared between the trucks lined up in their asymetrical precision, their imperfect rhythm. After he filled the tank, Wesley paced, marking the minutes with steady motion. He waited, patient with her whim, but she didn't return.   
At length he set out across the dusty parking lot towards where he last saw her. As he searched, he saw a familiar tangle of lanky limbs and dark hair beyond the trucks.

Fred.

Wesley knew at that moment that he must be going mad. He saw a dead woman along this deserted highway, in this island of truckers and ghosts.

Time stretched out like taffy and folded back in upon itself. He blinked and looked down at the end of the road; Fred was gone.

He found Illyria behind the semi-trucks, peering at the lewd depictions painted on their mud-flaps. "This is an idealized woman. It is folly; these are primitive drawings of no account."

Wesley's eyes blurred for a moment, then cleared.

*****

The second night, Illyria voiced no fault with their meager accommodations. She walked into the room ahead of Wesley, looked about and then sat stiffly on the thin coverlet. He sighed and closed the bathroom door against her scrutiny.

When he emerged, Illyria crouched beside Wesley as he rummaged in the saddlebags for another bottle. "Do you look at me and see her?" She leaned in, her nose nearly touching his, and peered at him.

Without words, without thought, Wesley let his lips answer that question. Illyria was still at first, her skin cool and dry, but she became responsive, embracing him and moving with him to the bed.

He wasn't sure when her body armour disappeared, but oh how surprisingly soft her skin was, minus all that leather. Cupping one delicate breast, he leaned in to taste the blue-tinged nipple, teasing it with his lips.

Her soft gasp sounded wholly unlike Illyria; he resolved to keep his eyes open throughout, afraid that if he closed them, he *would* see Fred. So Illyria's blue hair, eyes, cheeks were always before him, bitter reminders of her inhumanity.

This was right.

In the empty space left after their intimacy, Wesley turned to another flask of scotch. Illyria was quiet on the bed behind him as he sat on the floor, but then came into view, clad in her usual costume. She didn't turn her head as she stalked out the door; she didn't close the door after her.

Wesley contemplated the open door. He pondered the bottle in his hand.

He drank.

****

Weary and unrefreshed from fitful scotch-fueled sleep, Wesley stumbled out to the parking lot late in the day. Illyria was standing next to his bike.

She looked at him with the same disregard as ever. "This land is too dry. I wish for it to rain again."

Wesley shook his head and slipped into the saddle. "It's good to want things." He decided that he was wrong a moment later when she climbed onto the bike, wrapped her arms around him. Desire was a traitor to memory.

He buried his emotion under questions. "You don't like the climate, fine. We could head north. Why here? Why Texas?"

"I wish to see the place in which the shell was formed. I have memories of growth and change which I find unsettling, and there exist impulses I wish to explore."

Were all answers meant to rend one's spirit, tear the flesh of the heart into shreds? Inquiries, Wesley decided, were requests for heartbreak.

****

Illyria guided him to a quiet neighborhood, indicated a serene home. The mountains in the background loomed distantly; he hardly remembered traversing them.

Wesley stopped the motorcycle and noted that Illyria disembarked before he could cut power to the engine. Shaking his head, he attended to the side stand as she brushed past him, rushing to greet an old woman rocking on the porch next door.

"Mrs. Schurtz! It's just peachy to see you!"

"Why, Winifred! You've come to visit with your parents gone this morning to Hawaii?"

"I thought I'd surprise them. Darn it. Guess I shoulda called." She turned, wide smile, natural pink color high in her cheeks, to look at the astonished Wesley. "Hey, Wes, you can just toss the bags inside the side door. We never lock it."

"And who is this delightful young man?"

Wesley stared in amazement, in distress, as the neighbor smiled at Fred's prattle. He reached out to see if she might be solid, and she took his hand and squeezed it. Presently he found himself inside, settling the bags on a heavy oaken table, turning to find that Fred had joined him in the cheery room.

Tossing her dark hair, smiling over her shoulder, Fred rummaged in cupboard and freezer. "Wesley, wanna help me make some home-cooked Mexican food? We've been on the road so long, I've forgotten when I last ate. I'm just starved; aren't you?"

Wesley felt strangely bereft, as if something were terribly wrong. Light streamed in through the kitchen window, and Fred's eyes seemed to sparkle and harden blue. A moment later they were brown, wide and trusting as ever.

Wesley found himself agreeing that dinner was a splendid plan. What could be more normal than settling in to domesticity with his girl? Afterwards, he whistled as he did the washing-up, as she dried dishes and put them all where they belonged. All was well.

After the kitchen was tidy, Fred smiled and kissed him, lips warm, soft, and sweet. "C'mon, Wes! Let's watch the sun set from the porch swing." Taking his hand, she led him outside and sat in the circle of his arm, the picture of contentment.

Wesley watched the colour bleed out of the sky.


End file.
